


Double Date (Illustrated)

by Anonymous



Category: Horus Heresy - Various Authors, Warhammer 40.000, Warhammer 40k (Novels) - Various Authors
Genre: Dates, Double Date, Illustrated, M/M, cracky angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-09
Updated: 2013-12-09
Packaged: 2018-01-04 03:44:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,802
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1076151
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Secret santa prompt: I want to see Horus and San on a double date with Mr. and Mr. Ferrus Manus. Preferably at some gods awful big chain restaurant like Cheesecake Factory or Chilis.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Double Date (Illustrated)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kishiriaz](https://archiveofourown.org/users/kishiriaz/gifts).



> This couldn't decide whether it was crack or angst.
> 
> This is for an AU where Fulgrim encountered the daemon sword, but the Emperor got rid of it before anything really bad happened, but the daemon had some time to be mildly corrupting. Fulgrim and his Legion are on a permanent probation, and people are still on edge about it. The horus heresy hasn’t happened and is unlikely to happen, and if it did it would be very different. 
> 
> Putting this anonymous fic in this AU and mentioning it is going to make it very difficult to write about this AU under my normal name. Damnit.

The phone rang.

Horus peered over at the caller ID. Fulgrim’s name was displayed in small, digital characters. “Hello, Fulgrim. Horus speaking.”

He could hear the smile on the other end of the phone. “It’s good to have caught you instead of one of your servants.”

Horus leaned on a bench. This could take awhile. “What do you want?”

“I was just wondering if you and Sanguinius would be interested in going on a double date. You know, me and Ferrus, you and Sanguinius, together.” Fulgrim paced. You could hear his feet stepping against the marble, even with the slight distortion from the line.

“Sounds nice. What were you planning?” A feast, probably. With more pheasants and grox than you could shake a stick at. Probably

“Oh, nothing in particular. I have a few ideas though.” 

Horus tried to side-eye Fulgrim, then realised this was an audio only phone. “It’s weird of you not to mind.” He resisted saying it was concerning. Fulgrim didn’t need to be told that his behaviour was concerning. He’d heard it enough. 

The pacing stopped. “I just don’t particularly care where it happens, just that we’re all there.”

“This is to get Ferrus out of his forge, isn’t it?”

Fulgrim’s voice took a fake innocent edge, and the pacing resumed. “Maybe. Just ask Sanguinius about it, okay?”

“I will.” He hung up quickly to avoid another one of Fulgrim’s drawn out goodbyes. They’d only gotten more drawn out, like he was willing to drag himself through to spend an extra minute with you. A little flattering, but still very... concerning.

***

Horus made a holograph call to Sanguinius. A sphere of light shimmered into existence, forming a moving bust of Sanguinius. His wings obscured the background, making the borders of the hologram obvious. Sanguinius cocked his head, like one of the trained falcons Father would go on about if nobody stopped him. “Hello?” he said.

“Fulgrim is organising a double date. Me and you, Ferrus and Fulgrim, together.”

Sanguinius turned his head to the side and looked at Horus with one eye. “This isn’t going to turn into an orgy, is it?”

“Oh dear Science I hope not.”

Sanguinius gave out a little laugh. “Go ask Fulgrim then. If it isn’t a crazy scheme, I’d be delighted to come. It’d be good to spend some time with our other brothers.” He raised his eyebrows and looked up from beneath his lashes. “It’d be good to spend some time with you.”

Horus smiled back. “As if we don’t spend every spare moment with each other.”

“We’re busy people. Every spare moment isn’t much.”

There was a small, giggly pause. 

Horus broke it. “I’ll talk to Fulgrim about it. Love you.”

“Love you too.”

With some reluctance, Horus turned the projector off. 

***

Horus dialled in Fulgrim’s number. Fulgrim picked up the receiver almost instantly. “Horus, is it?”

“Yes. Sanguinius is willing, on one condition: that this isn’t a crazy ménage à quatre scheme, just as a crazy get Ferrus out of the forge scheme.”

There was silence on the other end of the receiver for a suspiciously long period of time. “Fulgrim?”

There was the sound of someone nearly dropping the phone as Fulgrim came back to awareness. “We’re not trying to get in bed with you two. We just want to spend time with you and Sanguinius.”

“That should be fine then.”

“Splendid!” Fulgrim tried to clap his hands and nearly dropped the phone again. “I’ll send you a time and address in a little while.”

***

They stepped out of the ground car into the chill, gritty air. Horus flung his arm of Sanguinius’ shoulder as they walked next to each other towards the address Fulgrim had given them.

Sanguinius shifted his wings to give Horus’ arm more room. He kept his head turned to side.

Horus turned his head to follow.

Sanguinius watched the city lights.

Horus smiled. It seemed that no matter how many times he’d seen them, Sanguinius always marveled at the lights. Sure, even Horus, who’d been seeing them for most of his life thought they were pretty, but not that pretty. Not stare worthy.

Sanguinius always seemed to think there was something special about them. Something especially beautiful. It struck Horus as quaint, until he remembered that Sanguinius was from a feral world. He didn’t wear it like Russ. He didn’t cover himself in the loose robes and rad counters of Baal. He’d got to the point where you could forget he came from a primitive desert culture. But the fact was always there in the background, waiting to pop up and surprise everyone. 

“You really do like watching the lights, don’t you?”

Sanguinius kept his head to the side and smiled. “You’re never going to convince me that they’re ordinary.”

Horus grinned back. “Never?”

“Never.”

They walked on, Horus facing the front and leading the way, Sanguinius leaning on him and watching the xenon signs. 

A group of pedestrians going past them stopped to bow. They didn’t say anything, just stayed there, waiting.

Sanguinius turned around and bowed back, arm over his waist like an unusually humble actor. 

Horus held up a hand. “You don’t have to do that.”

The pedestrians shot back up like there were spring loaded, and ran off. 

It was annoying, but he kept it off his face. Anger only made people bow more. 

It happened more often as they walked on, Sanguinius bowing and smiling, and Horus telling the citizens to stop. 

“I didn’t expect the location to be outside the Palace,” Horus said, once the random citizenry had dispersed. . 

“I think it might be part of Fulgrim’s scheme.”

“Where would he want to go that wasn’t in the Palace? Seedy motel for perverse daemon rituals?”

Sanguinius snapped around. “Don’t say that lightly!”

“I wasn’t serious. It was just gallows humour.”

“When someone has just been taken off the gibbet, miraculously still alive, it is not the time for gallows humour. Anyway, it’s probably something perfectly normal.”

Horus kept quiet, and Sanguinius’ anger drifted off, satisfied Horus had got the point. 

They stopped in front of a building. Horus checked the piece of paper with address written on it. “Well, this is the place.”

Sanguinius looked up at the name of the restaurant. “It’s an Astra’s,” he said matter-of-factly. 

“I didn’t think this would be to Fulgrim’s taste. I didn’t think this would be to Ferrus’ taste.”

“I don’t see why everyone dislikes Astra’s.”

“That’s because it has food. You automatically like it.”

Sanguinius shrugged. “It does good lychee dishes.”

If you like artificial lychees. Horus pushed the door open and squeezed through. He held it open as Sanguinius got himself and his wings through the door designed for mortals. 

A waitress spotted them and nearly dropped her tray. “Not more!” She knelt down on the ground. “We are unworthy, my lords.” 

Sanguinius said it first. “That’s unnecessary.”

“Don’t worry about them, brother. They’re just a little awed, is all.” Fulgrim smiled at them and waved them over. He and Ferrus sat at one side of the table, towering over the furniture.

Horus walked over, shoved a couple of chairs aside, and sat cross-legged on the tile. Even on the ground, he was far too tall for the table. 

Sanguinius followed suit, take a moment to adjust his wings so they folded comfortable and the feathers didn’t bend against the floor. 

Fulgrim grinned. “I may or may not have booked this under a fake name.”

Horus had to resist rolling his eyes. “Of course you did.” Fulgrim liked putting people off balance so he felt more balance. Horus thought that the run in with the Keeper would have stopped that, but apparently it didn’t. Maybe it was some sort of odd coping mechanism. All his brothers had theirs.

“I thought it would be nice to go somewhere unassuming, and that hadn‘t gone to lengths to cater for us. I thought it would be nice to go somewhere where we didn’t have to focus on the pomp and ceremony.”

“So you chose an Astra’s.”

Fulgrim cocked his head and grinned even more broadly, his cheeks making a heart shape and obscuring his eyes. “Exactly.” 

Ferrus butted in. “It also has Medusan food.”

“That too,” said Fulgrim.

Sanguinius elbowed Horus in the ribs, smiling. “See? I’m not the only one who likes it.”

Horus smiled back and rolled his eyes. 

They picked up the menus from between the salt and pepper shakers and read through them. 

“The Medusan stuff looks nice,” Sanguinius commented.

“The quail stew is especially good,” said Ferrus.

Sanguinius nodded.

Horus scanned through the menu. A lot of the dishes sounded nice, but then again, this was an Astra’s. Though the red curry didn't look to bad. How could even Astra’s screw up red curry? 

After a few minutes, the waitress walked to them and curtseyed with her apron. “What would you sirs like?” Her hand shook, and the stylus rata-tap-tapped against her data-slate.

“Look at the table, not at us,” Sanguinius said.

The waitress stared at the table and curtseyed again, hurriedly.

Fulgrim spoke first. “We’ll have a bottle of the Spiral Arm chardonnay.”

Horus glanced over at the wine list. It was the closes thing Astra’s had to a good quality wine, judging by the others on the list.

Fulgrim gestured to his brothers to order.

The deep, gravelly voice of Ferrus was next. “I’ll have the Medusan quail stew.”

The waitress scribbled it down. 

Sanguinius held up a hand. “I’ll have the lychee biryani.”

Horus spoke. “I’ll have the red curry.”

“And a single serve of steamed rice please,” Fulgrim said.

The waitress turned to Fulgrim, or rather the part of the table closest to Fulgrim. “Are you having anything, m’lord?”

“I’m just having the steamed rice.”

Sanguinius’ death glare restrained Horus from commenting. 

Her voice jumped up an octave. “Of course.” She took away their menus and ran off to the kitchen. 

There was silence. Fulgrim started drumming his fingers on the table.

“So, how are the Iron Hands doing?” Horus asked.

Sanguinius side-eyed Horus. “You are aware this is a date, right?”

“I’ve never been good at dates.”

“Uhuh.”

“My sons are going well. The 20th and 25th have just come back after the compliance of the Bersefony system. The second planet is apparently a prime lychee growing region.”

Astra’s is going to love that. More lychees! Real ones even! “That’s good.”

“So how’s your Legion?” Ferrus asked.

Fulgrim whispered to Sanguinius, sotto voce, “They’re both really bad at dates.”

Ferrus laughed.

“My Legion goes well. Same old, same old, really. The Mournival remains mostly sensible, and compliances are going well. Sanguinius?”

Sanguinius grinned. “I thought I said this was a date.” He waved a hand in front of his face. “The IX is doing fine.”

No one asked about the Emperor’s Children. Everything was still up in the air. Executions were still a thing. You could see it on Fulgrim’s face. He kept it far stiffer than it was naturally, and stared down at the table and spun a coaster to distract himself. Ferrus patted him on the shoulder. 

The food and wine arrived in record time. Horus was grateful for the distraction. Everybody was. The tension bled out of the table now that they didn’t need to focus on the Third’s predicament.

Fulgrim poured a measure of wine for everyone but himself.

Horus took a sip. It tasted like white wine. Which sounded obvious, but it was the best description he could think of. It was like cheap chocolate, it didn’t taste terrible, but it didn’t taste particularly special. Considering that this was wine from Astra’s, ‘okay, but uninteresting’ was pretty good. 

He put the glass down and saw his plate for the first time. Lychees rose out of the curry in towering peaks. “Oh.”

“You know it said it had lychees in it on the menu.” Sanguinius gave him one of his playful, sideways smiles. 

Horus kept staring down at his plate. Astra’s had an obsession with lychees, yes, but surely not that much of an obsession. “I wasn’t really paying attention to the menu.”

Sanguinius reached over with his chopstick and stole one of the lychees. “Well, if you’re not going to eat them...” He popped one in his mouth. 

Fulgrim gave Horus a knowing, ‘why did we get in a relationship with these people?’ look. Horus returned it. 

“Hey,” Sanguinius said as he covered his mouth with his hand, “Dislike lychees all you want, but don’t bag on people who do.”

The conversation went quiet as people focused on their food, Horus trying to eat around the lychees and get at his capsicum, and Sanguinius alternating between eating his own lychees and stealing Horus’. 

Sanguinius spoke up. “So, how’s the blacksmithing going?” He didn’t address it specifically to either Ferrus or Fulgrim.

Horus tried to hide his apprehension. No one knew if art was a safe topic around Fulgrim. No one really knew what safe topics were around Fulgrim. Fulgrim himself didn’t seem to know. Not even Magnus knew, because mind reading was definitely not a safe thing around Fulgrim. Considering Fulgrim’s asceticism since the Incident, art was quite likely thin ice. 

“I’m sticking with simpler pieces for now.” Fulgrim nodded his head in the direction of Ferrus. “My better half still remains devoted to decoration.”

So the Phoenix becomes the Gorgon and the Gorgon becomes the Phoenix.

Ferrus’ eyebrow quirked up. “Yes, that aquila pommel was definitely not decorative.”

Maybe not. 

“The pommel does serve a practical purpose though.”

The conversation turned to what counted as decorative. Not having the artistic sense of anyone else at the table (since when did Ferrus count as artistic?), he just listened and tried to follow. They would periodically throw him a bone to participate, but for the most part Horus was content to just file everything away for later use.

Fulgrim pointed at him with his chopsticks. “Legion colours: decoration or not?”

“I think they count a little, keeping in mind they serve as uniforms as well as all the functions that heraldry served Old Earth.”

Fulgrim nodded.

“Wasn’t heraldry used on the battlefield to identify particular knights? Wouldn’t that make it uniform as well?” Ferrus asked.

Horus shrugged. “I’m not sure, honestly.”

Sanguinius snuck a smile as the conversation drifted away from Horus. He kept sneaking smiles as the date went on, whenever he got the chance. Little grins, fangs hidden behind red lips and jet dark hair.

The evening wound down, the food finished, the philosophy of form versus function nearly exhausted. Finally, Fulgrim stood up. He held up his empty glass in a toast. “Thank you all for a lovely evening.” He smiled and looked grateful, but there was a hint of desperation, a hint of wanting this to never stop because the world outside of this situation was terrifying even for a primarch.

It was then Horus realised what Fulgrim’s motivation was. Not an excuse to get everyone into bed together, or to spend time in some sort of parody of mortal romance, no: it was distraction. He didn’t comment. He’d learned when he was small that you didn’t tell people the reason they were doing things. It was, at least according to the Emperor, beloved by all, impolite. 

After convincing Sanguinius and Horus that yes, it was okay by them, they were the ones offering to anyway, Fulgrim and Ferrus stayed behind to pay the bill. The manager thanked them profusely for the honour, while Sanguinius and Horus left into the grainy night air, Horus’ revelation still spinning round his head. “I’ve worked out what Fulgrim wanted,” he said once they were finally clear of the tiny door. Hopefully Sanguinius would excuse his impoliteness. 

“Distraction?”

“That obvious huh? I thought I’d made a discovery.”

Sanguinius wings splayed as he shrugged. “Maybe it’s easier with witch-sight. But still, the poor guy needed a calm distraction.”

“Still don’t know why it needed to be a double date to an Astra’s.”

“The company of good people is a very pleasant distraction. It’s good for taking your mind of things, I can attest to that.” He nuzzled the dip between Horus’ neck and shoulder to reinforce his point. 

Horus patted Sanguinius’ back. “Why did it need to be an Astra’s though?”

Sanguinius’ wings stiffened, and he paused awkwardly as he tried to find the words. “I think the daemon had... epicurean tastes .”

“Oh.” There wasn’t really much else to say. “Oh.” There wasn’t much you could say about the daemon. Especially if you had all the psychic skill of the average potato, despite your Father’s best efforts. 

Mention of the daemon completely killed the conversation. They walked on in silence, Sanguinius watching the lights and leaning on Horus.


End file.
